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Performance Comparison of AODV and TORA
in Different Network Sizes Using TCP and UDP
Waqas A. Imtiaz, Sudhir K. Burra, Mohammed M. Mubashir
Abstract—Mobile Ad hoc network (MANET) is a wireless
network with no prior infrastructure. All nodes in the network
are allowed to move freely which in turn makes routing very
difficult. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare the
performance of two routing protocols; Temporally-Ordered
Routing Algorithm (TORA) and Ad hoc On-demand Distance
Vector (AODV) in different network sizes with Transmission
Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
based custom applications. OPNET is used to implement the
scenario. Parameters like delay and throughput are used to
evaluate their performance. Evaluation of simulation results
show that AODV will perform better than TORA.
Index Terms—AODV, MANET, TORA
I. INTRODUCTION
M obile Ad-hoc Networks can be termed as “a set of
wireless mobile nodes forming a dynamic autonomous
network [2]”. Each node in MANET serves as a router
and a host for forwarding and receiving packets to/from other
nodes. Ad hoc network can be frequently deployed in
conferences, emergency situations and campuses for data
sharing and real time applications.
Scalability is one of the main issues in MANET which can
greatly effect its performance. As increase in the number of
mobile nodes and high node mobility makes routing very
difficult for a multi hop network along with the increase in
congestion and network load. So it is important to determine
suitable routing protocols which are capable of adapting
themselves quickly to its dynamic nature and provide best
performance over both data and real time applications.
In this paper we will evaluate the effect of changing
network sizes on the performance of two routing protocols like
AODV and TORA using TCP and UDP based custom
applications applying OPNET simulator. Performance
evaluation via delay and throughput on 10, 30 and 50 nodes
will show that AODV is performing better than TORA for
increasing network sizes.
II. REVIEW OF THE STATE OF ART
This section will discuss the most relevant work concerning
MANET routing protocols comparison. Study in [1] is
conducted over OPNET to evaluate the performance of
proactive and reactive routing protocols with only FTP traffic.
1
UDP in ad hoc networks will result in higher packet delivery
ratios and hence reduce the end to end delay as compared to
that of TCP [1].
A detailed work in [3] over QualNet shows that reactive
protocols produce more routing overhead compared to
proactive protocols for a stationary network. Performance
evaluation of AODV and TORA over QualNet and NS-2
shows that TORA drop more packets compared to AODV as
network size increases [4].
III. PROBLEM STATEMENT AND MAIN CONTRIBUTION
Changing network sizes and high node mobility in MANET
makes routing very difficult so it is important to determine a
suitable routing protocol which can perform efficiently.
Comparison of AODV and TORA is performed in this paper
over different network sizes, in order to determine that which
protocol can perform efficiently for varying network sizes.
Evaluation of performance metrics like delay and throughput
shows that AODV is performing better than TORA as the
network size increases.
Main contribution of this paper is to provide a simulated
environment for the performance comparison of AODV and
TORA and determine which protocol can perform better if we
increase the number of nodes with TCP and UDP traffics.
IV. PROBLEM SOLUTION
The approach used for the performance evaluation of
TORA and AODV is a simulation based approach, which is
performed in OPNET Modeler 14.5 with a campus network of
size 1000 * 1000 meters. Three scenarios are implemented to
evaluate the performance of AODV and TORA with random
number of nodes in increasing order.
In the first scenario, we have used 10 nodes for the
performance evaluation of AODV and TORA over TCP and
UDP based custom applications. Each node in the network has
a uniform speed of 10 m/s. A constant packet size of 1024
bytes is used for both TCP and UDP based applications. Each
scenario is run for a time period of 150 seconds. Random way
point mobility model is used to ensure the random movement
of each node.
In the second scenario we have increased the numbers of
nodes to 30 and 50 nodes are used in third scenario to
represent different network sizes. Remaining statistics are
same as that of the first scenario.
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0.035
0.03
0.025
AODV_TCP
0.02
AODV_UDP
0.015
TORA_TCP
0.01
TORA_UDP
0.005
0 10 Nodes
10 Nodes 30 Nodes 50 Nodes
Fig.1. Graph showing End to End Delay of AODV and TORA over TCP
and UDP traffic. X-axis represents the time and number of nodes for the
simulation and Y-axis shows WLAN Delay (s).
Delay and throughput are used to grade the performance of
AODV and TORA. For a better comparative study, results are
presented in the form of bar charts.
A. End to End Delay:
The average end to end delay across the Wireless Network is
obtained while changing the number of nodes and
transmission protocols between TCP and UDP. Increase in end
to end delay is observed for both protocols as shown in Fig.1.
This increase in delay can be justified by the consumption of
additional bandwidth.
However end to end delay in TORA is higher as compared
to that of AODV, because its main concern is route stability
where as finding the shortest path in between the source and
destination is of secondary importance [4]. Fig.1 shows that
UDP is better than TCP in terms of end to end delay for both
AODV and TORA. TCP is a connection oriented protocol
which introduces delay during transmission of extra packets
for connection establishment.
B. Throughput:
Fig.2 shows that there is a prominent increase in throughput
for both routing protocols as we increase the network size.
This increase in throughput is subjected to the network load
and bandwidth utilization, which increases with size of the
network. As “a small delay in the network will produce a
higher throughput” [1], that is why AODV is giving
sufficiently higher throughput as compared to TORA when we
increase the number of nodes.
TCP utilizes more bandwidth by sending more packets
during link establishment resulting in higher throughput as
compared to UDP.
C. Comparison of AODV and TORA:
End to end delay for AODV is less than TORA as we
increase the number of nodes because AODV follows the least
congested path rather than following the shortest path first.
However this delay becomes more severe for TORA as the
network size increases because of its reaction to congestion in
the network.
2
51000
41000
AODV_TCP
31000
AODV_UDP
21000 TORA_TCP
TORA_UDP
11000
1000
30 Nodes 50 Nodes
Fig.2. Graph showing through put of AODV and TORA over TCP and
UDP traffic. X-axis represents the time and number of nodes for the
simulation and Y-axis shows Bits/Sec.
AODV utilizes bandwidth more efficiently as packet drops
in TORA is more when the network size increases, therefore
AODV outperforms TORA in terms of throughput as shown in
Fig.2.
V. CONCLUSION
Evaluation of the performance metrics obtained from the
simulation results show that AODV will perform better than
TORA for both TCP and UDP based applications. This
concludes that TORA is not suitable for the networks with
large number of nodes, as higher load deteriorates the
performance of TORA. However the choice of the
transmission protocol between TCP and UDP for AODV is
user and application dependent.
Our work can help to improve the scalability issues along
with MANET security by using proper routing protocol. Other
mobility models like Random Walk, Random Direction can
also be used. More routing protocols and larger networks can
be compared to provide a detailed study of the protocols.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Thanks to Prof. Wlodek Kulesza for his support and
guidance during the project.
REFERENCES
[1] Bained Nyirenda, Jason Mwanza, “Performance Evaluation of Routing
Protocols in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs)”, School of
Engineering, Blekinge Institute of Technology karlskrona, January 2009.
[2] Anipakala Suresh, “Performance Analysis of Ad hoc On-demand
Distance Vector Routing” (AODV) using OPENT Simulator,
Communication Networks, University of Bremen, Bermen,11th April
2005.
[3] Naga .V.Yedida, Rajesh Reddy Challa, “Performance Comparison of
AODV, DSR and OLSR Routing Protocols in Static Scenarios”, Center
for Advanced Computer Sciences.
[4] Ioannis Broustis,GentianJ akllari,Thomas Repantis, MartMolle, “A
Comprehensive comparison of Routing Protocols for Large-Scale
Wireless MANETS”, Department of Computer Science and
Engineering, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521.
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Paper title: Performance Comparison of AODV and TORA in Different Network Sizes Using TCP and UDP.

Sudhir Kumar Burra was born in the
state of Andhra Pradesh, India in 1986.
He is an Indian citizen by origin. He
achieved a Bachelor of Technology
degree in Electronics and
Communications Engineering from the
Jawaharlal Nehru Technological
Univeristy, Kukatpally, Hyderabad in
2008. He is an exchange student who
completed Master of Technology in
INDIA and currently pursuing Master of
Science in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis on
Telecommunications in Blekinge Institute of Technology,
Sweden. His area of interest is in Telecommunication field.
Waqas Ahmed Imtiaz was born in
Nowshera, Pakistan in 1985. He is a
Pakistani citizen by origin. He
obtained a B.Eng degree in Electrical
Engineering from the University of
Engineering and Technology
Peshawar, Pakistan in 2007. He is
currently undergoing a Master’s
Program in Electrical Engineering
with emphasis on
Telecommunications at Blekinge
Institute of Technology, Karlskrona Sweden. His research
interest is on Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) and
Sustainable Telecommunication.

Mohammed Majduddin Mubashir

was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in
the year 1987.He completed his
Bachelor degree in Electronics and
Communication Engineering from
Jawaharlal Nehru Technological
University (JNTU), India.
He worked as a Senior Game Tester
at Canadian based Multinational
Company VMC Game labs, in the year
2008.He then moved to Europe for
studying Masters in Telecommunication. He is also a student
of M-Tech in Telecommunications, from Jawaharlal Nehru
Technological University, Hyderabad. At present he is
studying M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering with emphasis in
Telecommunications from Blekinge Institute of Technology
(BTH), Sweden. In the year 2009, He effectively performed a
research in the field of MANETS by evaluating the
performance of different routing protocols and therefore
succeeded in determining which protocol is best suited for
MANETS under different scenarios. His area of Research
interest includes Mobile and Wireless Communications.
.